An Experimental Investigation of the Permeability in Porous Chip Formed by Micropost Arrays Based on Microparticle Image Velocimetry and Micromanometer Measurements

Abstract

Measurements of velocity and pressure differences for flows in porous chip fabricated with micropost arrays arranged in square pattern were implemented by using micro-particle image velocimetry (micro-PIV) and high precision micromanometer. Based on the measurement results, the permeability was solved by Brinkman equation under the averaged velocities over the cross section, two-dimensional velocities on the center plane of the microchannels, and the averaged velocities on the center plane considering the effect of depth of correlation (DOC), respectively. The experimental results indicate that the nondimensional permeability based on different velocities satisfies the Kozeny–Carman (KC) equation. The Kozeny factor is taken as 40 for the averaged velocity over the cross section and 15 for two kinds of center velocities based on the micropost array of this study, respectively. The permeability calculated by the velocities on the center plane is greater than that by the averaged velocity over the cross section.